Mohonasen High School has received $1,000 for its Mock DWI program.
The award came from a national competition to promote safe driving in teens sponsored by Allstate Insurance Company and National Organizations for Youth Safety.
Mohonasen’s Mock DWI program ran last spring during prom and graduation season to encourage students to not mix drinking and driving.
We always do this during the spring because it is when the most parties take place, school resource officer Sgt. Thomas Culbert said.
The program featured two events one a Mock DWI crash scene where students witnessed the after effects of a pretend alcohol related crash and the second a presentation given by a victim of an actual DWI accident.
During the Mock DWI crash students were brought down to the field one morning where they found two mangled vehicles with their classmates inside. One student had gone through the windshield, one was lying in the grass, and about five others were in the back seats.
Emergency crews from Rotterdam EMS and Fire District 2 took nearly an hour to pretend rescue each victim. The Jaws of Life device was used to pry open the car doors and crews took off the entire roof of one of the vehicles.
The victims were covered in pretend red blood and were bandaged to make everything look more dramatic. In the mock crash, three students pretended to have died. The height of the drama was when an emergency helicopter buzzed overhead and landed on the ball field.
Crews did everything they would have during a rescue except they tried to make it more dramatic for the students in order to hammer home the message that drinking and driving do not mix.
Mohonasen High School was one of 50 other organizations nationwide to win money through this program. The competition, in its first year, is designed to promote safe teen driving.
`Allstate is committed to promoting safe driving and our hope is that programs such as Mock DWI will engage teens in discussion and underscore the importance of safe and responsible driving,` Schenectady Allstate agent Julie Baldes said.
The competition was part of this year’s first ever Youth Traffic Safety Month, which kicked off in May.
The other program sponsor National Organizations for Youth Safety is a coalition of national organizations and federal agencies that focus on youth safety and health.
National Organizations for Youth Safety’s executive director Sandy Spavone said the organization appreciates the leadership that Allstate has shown in encouraging and rewarding youth leaders who are creating National Youth Traffic Safety Month project in their communities.
Mohonasen has been providing safe teen driving programs for years, Culbert said.
This past year, no alcohol-related accidents occurred during Mohonasen’s prom and graduation season. Culbert said this is a sign that the programs are working. Culbert plans to use the $1,000 award to fund more safe driving and DWI-related programs.
`We are very excited to receive this award and we are pleased we will be able to continue these programs,` he said.
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